


Severed

by ideserveyou



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: Angst, Imprisonment, M/M, Mutilation, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-01
Updated: 2010-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideserveyou/pseuds/ideserveyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Tribble (or Troubble) in response to a writers' challenge entitled 'Three'.</p><p>Kai is captured. Arthur rescues him. Llud is sympathetic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Captive

I am alone in the dark. A chill draught torments my naked body; my feet are bound.

My right hand – my axe-hand – feels wet: blood still seeps from the stump of my little finger.

A gift for you, they said; bait to lure you into their trap. And there are still nine – no, ten – more they can send.

They all laughed.

I heard the jaws of the shears snick together.

These Picts will stop at nothing in their desire to vanquish you.

My Arthur, I am so afraid that you will not come.

And still more afraid that you will.


	2. The Shaven Man

The last Pictish swine dies by my feet as I kick the prison door down.  
My Kai, maimed and bleeding, lying in his own filth.  
I kneel and cut his bonds. He looks up.  
‘You came.’  
‘Of course.’  
‘The guards?’  
‘Dead.’  
‘And the others?’  
I smile. ‘Chasing me through the forest. Into an ambush.’  
‘But you are here.’  
‘A decoy. With my horse, my cloak, my shield –’  
He reaches up and touches my shaven head.  
‘What happened here?’  
‘ – And my hair.’  
He is laughing and crying as I lift him and take him outside, where Llud is waiting.


	3. The Father

Sleep on. You are safe now. There are worse things to lose than a finger – a whole hand, for instance.

Or a brother, or a son.

Poor Arthur. I will never forget his face when he opened that little stinking package. The knife left his hand without a second thought, to strike the Pictish messenger down.

He screamed in anguish, when I dropped the thing into the fire.

He held you in his arms all the way home.  
As he is still holding you now.

I pull the blanket over both of you, and steal softly out of the room.


End file.
